Helicopter Collides with Crane in London, Killing Two

Cranes—specifically cranes in major metropolitan areas, particularly those that must struggle through bad weather—have been involved in a number of frightening incidents over the last few months. Recall that Hurricane Sandy’s tallest victim was a crane on 57th Street. High winds nearly felled the apparatus, which, instead of tumbling off the side of a building, dangled perilously over central Manhattan for a few days. Luckily—amazingly—its most deleterious effect was the brief, awful trend of “crane-dangling watch parties” thrown by bros in Midtown banks.

The scene in London today is far more grim: a helicopter, struggling to navigate the gray, drizzly weather, crashed into a crane in central London this morning, killing the pilot, one bystander, and injuring half a dozen more. The falling helicopter just missed a subway station and a bus station, direct contract that would have been all the more disastrous given the accident’s timing during rush hour. Videos from the incident, like the above, are uniformly horrifying. “Very saddened to learn of the fatalities & injuries in today's helicopter crash,” London mayor Boris Johnson tweeted. “My thoughts are with the victims & their families.”